Well, you probably wouldn’t imagine this would ever happen but this week we are playing some good ol’ opera in class! This weeks music is from the opera, La Boheme. Now, I am not really an opera buff. Opera is not a genre I tend to gravitate to but this opera has a special place in my heart. When I was younger, our boy’s choir was asked to participate in the Edmonton Opera’s production of La Boheme as they needed children for the crowd scene in the second act. It was great fun singing, running around the stage in a costume and acting. We even got paid to do it! Since then, La Boheme has always brought back fond memories and the music is actually very beautiful. I told the children today that opera was the popular entertainment of the time. It would have had the same popularity as going to the movies does today.
This clip features the famous Luciano Pavarotti in the lead role:
Our music of the week is a Finnish a cappella ensemble named Rajaton, founded in Helsinki in 1997. Rajaton means “boundless”, which they chose to help explain the type of music they sing, from sacred classical to pop music. Rajaton performs primarily in Finland but also tours around Europe and the rest of the world. I have never seen them perform live but got to sing one of their songs with the choir I used to sing with a few years ago. I explained to the students today how hard it is to sing with no instruments to keep you in tune and on rhythm. It is quite the feat especially at this level! Here is the song I played for the students today:
Music of the Week: You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown!
In our class, each week, I like to highlight an artist or style of music that may be new to the students. Music is a huge part of my life and who I am. I have sung for years, having been in a choir since Grade 2, taken vocal lessons and performed in musicals. Wanting to share my love for music, quite a few years ago, I decided to start a Music of the Week with my students highlighting music from a variety of artists and genres showcasing the wonderful talents God has given people.
This week, our music of the week features the music from the musical, “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown!”
It isn’t often that I get to speak about the music of the week but the music we are listening to this week is from my favorite collection. For music of the week, I usually pick a genre, composer or style of music to play throughout the week, usually at lunch time. I try to make sure there is a mix of classical, jazz, musicals and others that I think the students would enjoy. I typically introduce them to the music on Monday, tell them a little bit about it and show a couple of videos of the music if there are any. I think it is really nice to be able to expose students to a wide variety of music beyond what they might typically hear on the radio. There is so much out there that is beautiful and amazing.
This week, we are listening to the musical version of The Lord of the Rings. It was created and performed first in Toronto before moving on to London and, as you can imagine, is a pretty major effort to get onto the stage. Three massive books in 3 and a half hours is not easy. But the music is, oh so beautiful and I thought I would share a couple of my favorite videos of the music with you.
The last video is a neat video of the Eagle Nebula
Are You Ready For December? The Mrhclassblog Is!!!
Ahh! Flakes falling gently. Snow crunching underfoot! Snowmen being made by little Grade 3 children. Snowballs flying through the air! I love the winter season!
Wait a minute . . .
Oh. Right. I forgot.
I live in B.C now. Rain, rain, more rain and . . . . wait for it . . . that’s right! More rain! I miss the snow. Lucky for you and me. I brought some now from Alberta to the blog. I hope you enjoy it. We had a good start to the week. In science, students are quickly finishing up the first part of the science unit on building. Last week, we learned that stable objects are objects that do not tip over easily and stand up on their own. We did an experiment with a variety of containers and had a little tournament to see which one would stand the longest as the table they were standing on was tilted slowly up. From that experiment, we learned that the taller and object is, the wider the base had to be and the more weight there had to be on the bottom.
Here is a video of some kids trying to build a tall structure. Do you notice anything about their structure that matches what we learned last week and today?
Do you notice anything about these buildings? (I didn’t write it so the spelling mistakes are not mine!!)
Using that knowledge, students have now been assigned the task of designing a sippy cup for Siena that will be stable and not tip over easily. The results should be very interesting!
Our Daily 3 is now on the way to running smoothly. The Listening Centre area had a few more kinks in it than I expected. But it is working better now. Thank you to all the parents who donated machines to the class. They are working beautifully. My goal and objective now is to start working in small groups with students focusing on books and reading strategies specifically geared to their age and reading level. We will be doing novel studies and comprehension activities as a small group of no more than 4 students. It should be very good. I will also be working with individual students to hear how their reading is doing and provide individual attention on an on-going basis.
As always, here is the spelling city link. Remember that if you bring me your completed test, you can receive an extra mark on your spelling test on Friday!!! The more you practice your words using games and other activities, the stronger your neurons and axons get!!!
Our Memory Verse continues on the Christmas-y theme here at Mrhclassblog! It is from Luke 2:10:
But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.
Finally, I thought this would be good to add to our collection of videos. This is from a cd of Science music we were listening to last week. It is by a group called “They Might Be Giants”. Anyone from my generation might remember them. Anyway, they have been getting into children’s music lately and this CD has a great collection of songs. The added DVD has the songs as videos and I found some of them on youtube. Enjoy!
Here is a little bit of fun to start of your weekend. We have been listening to the Brad Mehldau Trio this week. They are a jazz trio using piano, bass and drums. They probably are one of the bigger names amongst the most recent of jazz groups coming out and we have really been enjoying them. The low key, soft sounds have really been nice to have as background. Anyway, I found this video a few days ago and I thought it would be a nice compliment to what we had been listening to. It is a jazz piece by John Coltrane called Giant Steps. The author of the video took the music and matched it with the sound of the music to create a really neat video where you can follow the music along with the sound to get an idea of how they match.
Today, the students made it to 30 mins sustained reading. It was incredible!!! The students each have a box of books that have been leveled to their reading level. These are the books they are using for our Daily 3 program. Every week, students get to pick new books to add to their box based on their improvements in reading. The kids are really into the program. It so wonderful to see students really getting into reading. We will be starting our Home reading program soon once Thanksgiving is out of the way.
In their writing, we have been working on writing stories based on the book, “If You Give A Pig A Pancake”. We recently worked together as a class on a story as an example. You can see it below:
If You Give A Dog A Shoe
By
Mr. Hancock’s Class
If you give a dog a shoe, he will put it on his nose. Then he will go outside and try to shake the shoe off because it stinks. Then he will chew it up. After he chews it up, he gobbles it up and swallows it. He will get very, very, very, very sick and will have to go to the vet. After he is done in the doctor’s room, he will come out with his owner and see a orange, bob-cat. He will chase it all over the vet’s office and room knocking everything over. As he chases the cat, the dog will get caught in a cage of books. His owner will put him on a leash so he won’t run away. The dog will then get mad and start to chew off his leash. He will run into the middle of the road. All the cars will brake and smash, bang, boom, together into a huge, massive crash. After, his owner will come over and get very angry and scold him. The dog will find a shoe at the accident and start chewing it. He will throw it up in the air and it will land on his nose.
We will be starting our own stories based on that book starting tomorrow!!! Here is the spelling list for this week: Spelling M 3
I introduced the students to Spelling City a couple of weeks ago and the response already has been incredible. I had many students bring their certificates in from after their practice and I also had a few parents writing notes stating that their child completed the practice test and got 100%. That was fantastic! Here is the link to this weeks Spelling City list:
I wasn’t able to send out the memory verse this week as our printers were down (though I guess the students could have written them in their planners!). However, the memory verse is below and we will be adding them into their planners tomorrow. I think it is a very good verse and again, it was supplied by one of the students.
Romans 12:21
Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good.
Finally, I am not sure if you are aware of this but every week, I feature a “Music of the Week”. Each week, I highlight a different style/genre for the students to experience. I try to play some jazz, children’s music, christian, classical, vocal, etc. This week we are featuring the musical, “You’re Good Man, Charlie Brown”. It is a fun musical and the students seem to be really enjoying it. Here is a video from the musical:
Keep watching the blog this week. We have exciting things coming up. Videos, maps, notes and maybe a few cookies!!! Hmmm, keep checking here for all your news, info and fun!!!!
I hope everyone is having a great weekend. I thought I would give you all a little Sunday gift. I found this video last week and the song has been in my head all week. So I thought that you would appreciate it if I shared it with you so we could all have the song in our head!!! It’s not as bad as an ABBA song (and if you don’t know who ABBA is, ask your parents but don’t, I repeat, don’t play any of the songs. You’ll never get them out of your head. I had one song in my head for three weeks. It was not pretty.)
Anyway, here is the song. It is an old childrens folk song sung by Lisa Loeb.
Monday Spelling and Memory Verse (And, If You’re Very Good, A Surprise!)
Don’t Forget that the Science Challenge Projects are due Monday!!!
Thus ended another busy week (like how I used a spelling word?)! One thing I wanted to say though was how proud I was by how hard the students worked for the Service Day. It was an amazing afternoon. Though I didn’t quite realize how long the walk was actually going to be, the students did an amazing job and hardly complained at all though I am sure they were very tired at the end of the day. It was really inspiring and I was very proud to see how enthusiastic they were and how well they pulled together to gather garbage to help keep Chilliwack clean and spread the message!
We also planted tomatoes yesterday which was a lot of fun. We talked about all sorts of things including learning about the parts of the tomato, how Earth is the same and/or different than Mars (ask your child how old they would be and how much they would weigh on Mars if they lived there!), and started filling out and completing the parts of the experiment. The tomatoes are now in their temporary home for the time being. We will be very interested to see what happens. The students had a little big of a hard time doing their observations of the tomato seed as it is very small and light and kept disappearing. However, we did manage to get all the students to plant one space seed and one regular seed. We don’t know which seed is which (as that is part of the experiment) but the general agreement is that Seeds B are the space ones as they are rougher and pointier than the Seed A group. We shall see. Anyway, it was a lot of fun.
Today was the first big dress rehearsal for The Music Man. It has been a stressful week of rehearsals but I think things have pulled together and it should be a lot of fun. As you may know the students are being joined by Mr. Shinness, Mr. Preston, Mr. Neudorf and myself. It has been a lot of fun learning the songs and singing with the other gentlemen and just being involved in a musical again. I was telling Mr. Shinness that it has been a long time since I have done a musical and being involved in this one was bringing back a lot of memories from my High School productions. Anyway, I found a couple of clips of The Music Man for you to enjoy.
Ahh! Flakes falling gently. Snow crunching underfoot! Snowmen being made by little Grade 3 children. Snowballs flying through the air! I love the winter season!
In their writing, we have been working on writing stories based on the book, “If You Give A Pig A Pancake”. We recently worked together as a class on a story as an example. You can see it below:
